This is of course terrible. But it is hardly a surprise. Anyone that has used the app for more than five minutes knows that it is full of material that spans from the shady to the outright inappropriate. It’s everywhere. (And it isn’t just in their kids app either).

It’s also not surprising why this keeps happening. You get the ecosystems you design for. That’s why it is disingenuous when Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, makes comments like “I’ve seen how some bad actors are exploiting our openness to mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm”. You knew it was happening long before this came up. You designed an ecosystem that encouraged it.

Creators make what the ecosystem – and the ranking algorithm – encourages them to make. If you want to change that outcome, start by redesigning the variables that determine success in your ecosystem. Everything other than that is just PR.